Members of the G7, which includes France, Germany, the United States, Canada, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, voted Sunday to "hold China accountable" by calling for a new investigation into the origins of Wuhan Coronavirus. The investigation is likely to be conducted by the World Health Organization.
BREAKING: Biden and leaders of world’s six wealthiest nations call for fresh probe of coronavirus origins.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) June 13, 2021
G7 communique also calls on China to respect human rights, confirms donations of 1 billion vaccines.
Back in the U.S. Sunday morning, Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated the point.
“China has to cooperate with that transparency, access for international experts, information sharing that has to happen,” Sec. Blinken says on continuation of WHO probe into COVID-19 origins. pic.twitter.com/NTwncTR5Ha
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) June 13, 2021
The vote is meant to show western countries are "doing something" about China unleashing the pandemic on the world, but given the WHO's collaboration with the Chinese Communist Party in December 2019 and January 2020 to downplay human-to-human spread of the disease, the move all but ensures we'll never truly know how the pandemic initially started.
At the end of December the WHO was warned by Taiwan officials that the Wuhan coronavirus was spreading through human-to-human contact. The WHO, an ally first to China -- whose communist party is hostile toward Taiwan -- said two weeks later there was "no evidence" this was the case. They did this by citing unreliable, dishonest, official Chinese government sources. Nearly two weeks after that, the WHO argued against restrictions on international air travel.
In the time in-between the warning from Taiwan and the statement from WHO everything was fine, China destroyed samples of the virus, shut down labs, arrested doctors and welded shut buildings where victims of the disease lived.
.@SecBlinken says on @FaceTheNation the WHO must be able to move forward “with China cooperating” on a Phase 2 report looking at the coronavirus origin. That’s not serious. The WHO has already shown its impotence. If Biden punts to the WHO, that would be negligence.
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) June 13, 2021
.@jdickerson points out Beijing has already said it won’t cooperate with the WHO on investigating the Wuhan labs. Blinken says “China has to cooperate with that” but has zero answers for what the US would do to bring pressure. All talk, no action.
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) June 13, 2021
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